Notes from Community Town Hall

We had a great discussion about the state of Austin’s economy and budget this past Tuesday evening. Our deepest thanks to those in attendance as well as to our hosts at the First Unitarian Universalist Church. Please find below our notes of participant comments from the meeting. We look forward to continuing the important dialogue about how best to approach the difficult economic times.

Participant Comments from Community Town Hall

April 14, 2009

First Unitarian Universalist Church

Economy – Role of government and economic development

1.       Do not incentivize big corporate businesses

2.       Focus on locally owned business that can provide serious import substitution

3.       How do we retain locally grown businesses?

a.       Some big corporations are good citizens, provide good jobs and good wages, and support Austin

                                                               i.      Samsung, e.g., brings about $50 million/ year to the city’s economy and is a major sponsor of many cultural events

b.      Some big corporations eventually become “local” companies

c.       COA offers very few incentives to begin with and only to fill holes in the industrial portfolio

d.      COA does not incentivize retail and no longer incentivizes project-based

4.       Loss of Austin as a great community which can naturally attract business without financial incentive

5.       Concern that big business has us “over a barrel” as we compete with other cities and states to attract new high-potential industries

6.       Concern about the existence of a “retail monopoly” and its affect on locally owned small businesses

7.       We should grow our local industrial base and focus on manufacturing and production

a.       Difficult to move a manufacturing facility once it’s established

b.      Should be firms that utilize Austin’s human capital as much as possible

8.       How can we keep local labor costs competitive to retain business?

a.       Focus on affordability measures to keep workers in Austin so it’s less expensive for the resident and the business

9.       Government should educate residents on best practice affordability policies that help alleviate higher cost of living in Austin

10.   Offer free electricity to filming events

11.   Search for companies that have local ownership

a.       Keeps more of corporate income inside Austin

12.   Expand COA Emerging Technology Incubator and UT’s Austin Technology Incubator

a.       Ensure integration with Chamber’s business retention and expansion program

13.   COA should improve its contract process to bind recruited companies to the promises they made

14.   Bring a medical school to Austin

15.   Biggest incentives should be based on corporate/business model. 

a.       This encourages locally owned companies to stick in Austin and incentivizes companies to think how best to share profits

                                                               i.      Capital accumulation; commonwealth bank fund; enterprise model; credit creation model are different models over revenue sharing etc. that may be more responsible in the long-run

Budget – Use of Federal Stimulus Money

1.       Focus on weatherization and energy efficiency retrofits

a.       Is there a conflict with Austin Energy being in the energy conservation business, especially given the amount of money it transfers to the city?

2.       Develop Education

a.       Example given about a group of Chicago students who trained in an Italian closed loop industrial park and returned home to launch their own polytechnic school.

3.       Increase COA share of fuel efficient cars and develop Mass transit

4.       COA should lobby the Strama/Watson bill that would allow residents to amortize cost of energy efficiency retrofits or appliance upgrades over several years

5.       Develop 3-share health care plan

a.       System in which individual, company and city share the cost of health insurance

b.      This in turn helps small businesses grow and serves as an incentive for small local business to stay in Austin

Budget Cuts

1.       Focus on salary cuts so as to protect jobs of city employees

a.       Some will choose to remain in position at lower rate

b.      Others will leave – COA can then rehire the position at lower rate so as to maintain service delivery and capture cost savings

c.       Allows all departments to “share the pain” of the budget cuts

d.      Can we re-open Meet and Confer contracts?

2.       Look at discontinuing high-dollar bond packages to reduce the annual debt service payments

a.       E.g., Water Treatment Plant #4 and Waller Creek redevelopment

b.      Meanwhile search for conservation initiatives that yield similar net increase in volume of water but also reduces cost to city of providing water, e.g.

3.       Why is Austin Police Department the highest paid PD in the state?

a.       Also drives up Travis Co. Sheriff rates which is passed through to property tax assessment

4.       Increase transfer of surplus from Enterprise Funds (Austin Energy, Water Utility, etc.)

5.       EMS is looking at a different response models to try to limit its need to increase fleet size

a.       Might have one paramedic respond to low priority calls to triage on the scene

6.       Change city policy to have idling public safety vehicles shut off to avoid wasted gasoline

7.       Look at procurement policies and make choices that would save city money

a.       E.g., of COA fleet converting to cheaper fuel alternative

b.      Consolidate procurement contracting to take advantage of bulk rates

8.       Provide incentive to employees and residents to come up with creative ways of saving money (offer idea leader 1% of saved money)

9.       Institute fee structure for unnecessary APD response

10.   Developers should have increased fees to:

a.       Cover more of pro-rata cost of infrastructure serving the development, and/or

b.      Make Neighborhood Planning and Zoning revenue neutral.

c.       Must ensure that only targeted developments are included in fee increase

d.      COA is responsible to provide services to big downtown developments and doesn’t collect enough fees to cover the added expenses

e.      Austin already has a reputation as a difficult city to do business, so be wary of increasing fee burdens

11.   How do we keep up with infrastructure costs – raise taxes?

a.       Find point at which growth stops paying for itself and stop growth at that rate

b.      Or consider it as what growth rate is sustainable and limit growth to that rate

Summary Ideas

1.       How can COA work together with AISD and Chamber of Commerce to make smart growth decisions?

2.       COA could raise property taxes if it can make a good business case

a.       Some concern that combination of COA plus Travis Co. taxes are already too high

3.       Need to consider underemployment rate alongside unemployment rate to get sense of how our economy is doing

4.       Measure income that comes with growth – in other words, are we adding good paying jobs as more and more people come to Austin?

5.       Try to reach out to eligible low income and/or homeless residents and register them for federal social services assistance to increase share of federal funding

6.       Neighborhoods should have option to add tax assessment to their own bills to pay for neighborhood specific improvement

a.       Expanded version of Neighborhood Matching Fund

b.      Residents must be able to “turn off” assessment once project is fully funded

7.       Review Chamber of Commerce contract to ensure they aren’t “going for the home run” chip plant and remain focused on business retention and development